Have a sizzling and safe barbecue this Bank Holiday!

Last Updated:
19th August 2016

Last Updated: 19 Aug 2016 4:08pm

If you're aiming to round off the summer holidays with a Bank
Holiday barbecue this weekend, Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council's Food
& Safety Team and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have some good advice to
help make it a safe success.

With gourmet burgers in restaurants becoming increasingly
popular some people may be tempted to serve their guests with burgers that are
pink in the middle. But a burger is not like steak. Steak can be served rare because any
contamination on the surface of the meat is destroyed when the steak is seared
on the outside. Burgers are made of minced meat, so any bacteria, on the
outside of the whole piece of meat, are mixed up throughout burgers when the
meat is minced. If bacteria are mixed into the middle of the burger and it
isn't cooked all the way through, the bacteria can survive and cause food
poisoning. That's why a burger should be thoroughly cooked all the way through.

* cook burgers so they are steaming hot
all the way through, no matter how good quality or

expensive the meat

* check that none of it is pink and
that any juices run clear, and

* avoid cross contamination by storing raw meat separately
before cooking, using different utensils, plates and chopping boards for raw
and cooked food.

Councillor
David Lettington, Member for Street Scene and Environment Services, said: "It's
important that we do our part to make sure that people know how to handle and
cook food safely for themselves and for their families. We're proud to be
keeping people in Tonbridge and Malling safe and well by being part of this
campaign to spread the word – if you want your barbecue to be remembered for
the right reasons, follow this advice on beating the barbecue bugs!"

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